Guardiola's offences, punishments and trouble: all the details about Manchester City's investigation - voila! sport

Tiktuknu: clip summarizing today's events in sports, 6.2 (Sport1)

After the serious accusations against Manchester City, in England they are trying to find out: what did they allegedly do wrong?

What happens now?

And is it really possible to throw the team out of the Premier League?

As mentioned, the English champion is accused of violating the Premier League rules in more than 100 articles, and the club is facing the danger of points being deducted or even being expelled.

The offenses were committed over a period of nine seasons and are related to issues that include, among other things, failure to provide accurate financial information on sponsorship income and failure to disclose the true salary of senior members of the group.

But what does all this mean, what happens next and what could be the consequences for City?

More on

points reduction or relegation?

"City violated the rules of the Premier League"

Disclosure: Is this how Manchester City cheated the UEFA Fair Play rules?

According to the suspicion, dozens of financial offenses were committed.

City (Photo: Reuters)

What are the charges?

The Premier League released its statement on Monday morning detailing dozens of alleged breaches of league rules by Manchester City - outlining the specific clauses.

The first section refers to the provision of accurate financial information by the teams regarding the club's financial situation, in particular in relation to its revenues (including sponsorship revenues), its related parties and its operating costs.

The statement then detailed the specific rules, for each season between 2009/10 and 2017/18, that City had allegedly broken.

It should be noted that the Abu Dhabi United group, led by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, took ownership of City in September 2008 and still maintains control.

The second section, which refers only to the 2009/10 to 2012/13 seasons, refers to the requirement for clubs to 'include full details of the coaches' salaries in their relevant contracts'.

The coach of City during this period was Roberto Mancini.

The third section refers to Premier League clubs "that comply with UEFA regulations, including club licensing and financial fair play". These sections refer to the 2013/14 seasons up to the 2017/18 season.

The fourth section deals with the rules on "profitability and sustainability" and they concern three seasons from 2015 to 2018.

The fifth and last section is about the period between December 2018 and today, and refers to the rules "obliging a club to cooperate and assist the Premier League in its investigations, by providing documents and information to the heads of the Premier League in good faith."

good to know (in advance)

The secret to improving your sex life - now in a special sale

Served on behalf of "Gabra"

A lot of suspicions.

Sheikh Mansour (Photo: GettyImages)

Received millions from the side, apparently.

Mancini (Photo: GettyImages)

Does it come as a surprise?

This is the culmination of an investigation that has lasted four years and was conducted in great secrecy.

Both City and the Premier League went to great lengths to try and keep it a secret - until today.

It all started when the German investigative website Der Spiegel published documents from Football Leaks - where it was alleged that City had lied in reports about sponsorship income, when in fact the money was paid to it by the owners of the club from Abu Dhabi, instead of sponsors connected to the Gulf state, as it had reported, allegedly falsely.

Those figures referred to sponsorship deals with Al Etihad airline, which still sponsors City's stadium and shirts, and telecoms company Etisalat.

In fact, it was claimed that the money actually came from Sheikh Mansour's Abu Dhabi United team.

It was also announced that Mancini's salary was actually raised through a secret contract with the people of Abu Dhabi.

The documents published by Der Spiegel apparently showed that Italian coach Mancini received secret payments through a secret contract, which was a consulting arrangement with the club.

While Mancini's contract had a basic salary of £1.45m net, his company in Italy also received £1.75m annually for a role at Al Jazeera.

The obvious goal was to circumvent the financial fair play laws.

The leaks also claimed that City broke the rules regarding their appeal to young players.

Trust his managers.

Pep (Photo: Reuters)

But wasn't all this dealt with by UEFA? When City were kicked out of the Champions League and then it was cancelled?

City were indeed charged by UEFA and banned from the Champions League for two years by the financial watchdog in February 2020 and also fined £27 million.

City appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in July 2020, had the punishment overturned and the fine reduced to £9m.

CAS said "most of the alleged breaches were either unproven or time-barred". In other words, there was a five-year time frame in which establish a solid case against City and it didn't happen.

At the time, this decision allayed the concerns of manager Pep Guardiola, who questioned the club's hierarchy in these financial matters. Last year, Guardiola said: 'I told our people 'tell me' about the suspicions. I looked at them and believed 100 percent to them from day one, so I defended the club because of that."

Manchester City have always denied any wrongdoing, saying the emails were hacked and taken out of context.

But the Premier League also launched its own investigation in December 2018, and crucially, unlike UEFA's - it has no such time limit.

Now the question is what Guardiola will do, who has previously stated that if it becomes clear to him that the club has broken the rules, he will leave.

• sport

• world football

• English League

Tags

• Manchester city

• Roberto Mancini

• Pep Guardiola